While eating out can be enjoyable, just one restaurant meal can fulfill nearly 70 percent of a person’s daily calorie needs.
A fun way to “Live It” is to cook at home. Planning and preparing meals makes it possible to have complete control over how many calories the whole family eats.
Here are several tips to get started.
- Start small by preparing one meal at home each week
- Enjoy browsing recipe categories and healthy recipes on the LLUH employee wellness program site: http://bit.ly/1jkX8bY. The site lists nutritional content including calories, sodium, and cholesterol levels.
- Design your plate. Half of each plate should contain vegetables and fruit; fill up the rest of the plate with three to four ounces of lean protein and one half to one cup of whole grains.
- Add flavor while lowering calories, fat, and sodium by buying produce when it is in season and by adding herbs and spices instead of salt.
- Stock up on dried fruit, whole-grain pasta, and frozen vegetables.
- Cook a substantial meal on Sunday and freeze portions to eat during the week.
Source: 2014 ‘Live It’ 2014 LLUH health and wellness calendar